Copilot Meeting Notes in Teams: Setup, Recap, Transcripts and Prompts

Copilot in a Teams meeting can summarize the discussion, say who said what, suggest action items and answer questions, both during the meeting and after it. Whether it can still answer after the meeting ends depends on two things set before the meeting starts: the organizer's Copilot option and a running transcript. Get those two right and the notes are there when you go looking for them.

Prompts that turn a finished meeting into minutes, a decision log or your own action list are in the Teams section of the Copilot prompt library.

What has to be on before the meeting

1. A license for anyone who prompts. Copilot in Teams meetings needs the paid Microsoft Copilot add-on license, which Microsoft called Microsoft 365 Copilot until its recent rename. Each person's prompts and answers are visible only to them.
2. The organizer's Copilot option. Open the meeting in your Teams calendar, select Options, and find Copilot and other AI. The organizer controls this setting even without a license.
3. A transcript. Start one from More actions > Transcribe, or start recording, which turns transcription on too. Every participant sees a notice that the meeting is being transcribed.

The organizer's option has three values:

• During and after the meeting. Copilot starts when someone starts transcribing, and stopping the transcript stops Copilot. This is the value that keeps notes available afterward.
• Only during the meeting. Copilot works from speech-to-text that isn't saved, and no transcript is created. When the meeting ends, the Copilot conversation is gone.
• Off. No Copilot, and no recording or transcription either.

Two limits matter for client calls. Copilot won't work in a meeting hosted outside the participant's own organization, and it isn't available in end-to-end encrypted meetings. People from another organization can read the live transcript in your meeting, but they can't start it, stop it or open it afterward.

What the admin policy does to the organizer's choice

Admins set the starting point in the Teams admin center under Meetings > Meeting policies > Recording & transcription > Copilot, or with the -Copilot parameter of Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy.

The transcription policy counts too. If transcription is off in an organizer's policy and the meeting is set to During and after, licensed attendees can't use Copilot until another participant who is allowed to transcribe starts the transcript.

Copilot, intelligent recap and Facilitator

Three AI features show up around a Teams meeting, and each keeps its notes in a different place.

Copilot is the private chat in the meeting controls. You ask, it answers, and nobody else sees the exchange.

Intelligent recap is the Recap tab after the meeting. It adds AI-generated notes, suggested follow-up tasks, markers for when your name came up and when each person spoke, and chapters for recorded meetings. It comes with Teams Premium or a Microsoft Copilot license. The AI notes need a transcript in a supported language and a meeting of at least five minutes. People in your organization who were invited can open the recap. Anyone who wasn't invited can't, even with the recording link.

Facilitator is an agent in the meeting chat. Its prompts and replies are visible to everyone in the meeting, and it keeps shared notes on the Notes tab that any participant can edit. It comes with a Microsoft Copilot license and doesn't run in external meetings.

Prompts during the meeting

Select Copilot in the meeting controls to open the pane. If you join more than five minutes late while Copilot is active, Teams offers to catch you up.

Microsoft's support page suggests the first and last of these:

Where do we disagree on this topic?

Summarize what has been discussed so far. List anything decided and anything still open.

What questions have been raised that nobody has answered yet?

Create a table with the ideas discussed and their pros and cons.

A response over 1,300 characters gets an Open in Word option, and a table gets Open in Excel. A sensitivity label on the meeting, or the meeting option that turns off copying and forwarding, can block both.

Prompts after the meeting

Open the meeting chat and select Open Copilot in the upper right, or go to the Recap tab. Both show the same Copilot history from the meeting, as long as transcription was on. A meeting set to Only during the meeting has nothing to come back to. In a recurring series, Microsoft says earlier Copilot history stops being available once a later meeting in the series is transcribed, so copy out what you need after each one.

Write detailed notes for this meeting, by topic, in the order discussed. Under each topic: what was said and by whom, the decision marked DECISION or "no decision", and anything left open. Then list every action with owner and deadline. Write "unassigned" or "no date" where none was stated.

Draft a follow-up email to the attendees. Start with what was decided, then each action with its owner and date, then open questions. Keep it under 200 words in a plain tone. Include nothing that wasn't said in the meeting.

For formal minutes, a decisions-only log or only your own actions, the library's formal minutes prompt and the prompts around it have longer versions with notes on where each one slips.

To send the AI summary from intelligent recap instead, go to Recap, select Share, then Share to email, edit the draft and send. It goes from your own address and can include participants outside your organization. Check the draft against the transcript before it goes. Microsoft's recap page says AI-generated content can be inaccurate or incomplete, and the follow-up email is the version people act on.

Where the recording, transcript and notes are kept

People in your organization who were invited can view a regular meeting's recording. Guests and external attendees see it only if it's shared with them. Channel meeting recordings follow the channel's SharePoint permissions. The organizer and co-organizers can delete the transcript and, by default, download it as .docx or .vtt.

How long it all lasts

Recordings and transcripts expire after 120 days by default. An admin can change that with the Recordings and transcriptions automatically expire setting in the meeting policy, anywhere from 1 to 99,999 days, or set them never to expire through PowerShell. A change applies only to recordings made after it. An expired recording moves to the recycle bin of the OneDrive or SharePoint site that held it. For work accounts, OneDrive empties recycle bin items after 93 days unless an admin changed that.

Intelligent recap notes and tasks expire according to your organization's policies, and Microsoft says the recap features follow the meeting recording retention policy.

For anything that has to be kept as a record, use Microsoft Purview. Recordings and transcripts from regular meetings need a retention policy that includes the organizer's OneDrive account. Channel meeting recordings are covered by the policy for the team's files. Copilot prompts and responses use the Microsoft Copilot experiences location, and Microsoft notes they might be retained even when Copilot ran without a transcript.

Set it up once

1. Pick the Copilot value for each meeting policy. Teams that want notes afterward need one of the two saved-transcript values, or organizers who know to choose During and after the meeting.
2. Make sure the people who organize meetings are allowed to transcribe, because During and after depends on it.
3. Set recording expiration to match how long your organization keeps meeting records, then add a Purview retention policy that covers organizers' OneDrive accounts and Copilot interactions.
4. Decide on consent. An admin can require participants to agree before a meeting is recorded or transcribed. Recording-consent law depends on where participants are, and the client data and consent guide lists the states that need every party's agreement.